Marriage equality is a worthy cause, and UK laws rightly ban discrimination on grounds of sexual orientation. But a legal case by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland against a bakery unhelpfully confuses different issues.

The political figures of my youth are gradually dying off. Ian Paisley has joined Tony Benn, Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan in the ranks of dominant figures of the 1980s who are no longer with us.

Plans for a major march against racism in Belfast have been announced by Amnesty International, the Northern Ireland Committee of the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Northern Ireland Council for Ethnic Minorities.